Battlefield 4 is quickly becoming a very playable game, the developers have fixed most of the bugs and the frustrations of the release version are long behind us! I’m doing one for Battlefield 4 as the possibilities in the game are seemingly limitless! this is just a quick 5

Get a road kill with a jet… Prepare to have a very, very bad game!

Parachute from an air vehicle into a friendly chopper below you.

The classic “Jihad Jeep” (C4 your jeep, drive toward a tank, jump out so the jeep will crash into the tank then blow the C4).

Shoot someone’s mines whilst they are being placed

Shoot a pilot out of a helicopter. Optional: Take it when it lands.

These are just a quick five challenges I thought of for now, if you have any challenge ideas put them in the comments below, they may come into a youtube video soon!

Psychic Strangers are an up and coming band based in Sheffield. If you’re a fan of indie rock n’ roll music then I have no doubt you will love these guys! Their music is varied and there is a song for everybody.

Downloadable content or DLC has fast become the norm for most developers to bring to their games, in some cases this is great, bringing whole new worlds to a game that would previously be left to dust. In other cases, the DLC seems to bring limited extra content.

Borderlands 2 had one the the best DLC offers for the price, a season pass costing £40 got you 5 extra stories which were based in completely new areas! Each campaign was unique and bought extra items to the game aswell! The gameplay of each DLC was around 5 hours each of main missions and around 3 hours each for side missions. So for $40 you get around 40 hours of gameplay, theres a lot of bang for your buck here

Some DLC seems pointless however, The Elder Scrolls IV Oblivion offered an extremely pointless DLC of horse armour… why on earth would anyone want this!? Paying £1.50 for something purely aesthetic seems a bit pointless, and really didn’t change the gameplay in anyvway! Pointless may be an understatement there.

Some of the more pointless DLC comes from racing games, paying a lot of money for new cars seems impractical considering that the big games Forza and Gran Turismo come with more cars than you know what to do with! I agree, some cars are so special that you cant help but feel that playing a game will be as close as you will get to driving it! Most of the cars though… not worth spending money on.

DLC Quest is a game that makes fun of Developers using DLC as a way to make money out of releasing their games early, in some ways it makes a really good point of some content which may be made out as “essential” but in reality is pointless. It also highlights the games that need a day one patch for it to be playable. *cough* skyrim *cough*

For DLC to be worth while for single player games it should follow the borderlands method of DLC, new stories, new worlds, more content. I had a blast playing through Borderlands 2 DLC, it was fresh and offered more game instead of claiming to be a new game. Some small extras can be worthwhile if they offer a changeup in gameplay, however some games offer too much extra content and most of it could easily be released with the full game.

DLC will never go away, it just needs to be relevant and new, adding more to the game making me want to play it more!

What happened to splitscreen Co-op games? Do you remember the days when all games came with a local co-op mode? Some games even played better when you played with someone else, some of my favourite gaming moments have come from playing split-screen co-op with a friend!

I bought an Xbox One when it was released, I love it like bacon, its great, however! Theres an extreme lack of co-op games and games that are worth playing split-screen at all. The main exclusive co-op game was dead rising 3, which is a fantastic game however its co-op has been plagued by non stop issues with xbox ones party app (which sucks!)

I was never able to play dead rising with my friends because the party chat always caused problems. It frustrated me to the point of selling it, it wasn’t worth keeping after two completions. I also felt like the story was a secondary point, not too much of an issue as the game play was epic

Spartan Ops was the biggest disappointment for co-op, with only 6 levels available to play with your favourite buddy, the co-op was almost a waste of time, finished in around 25 minutes. Not cool Vanguard games!

A game that really should have local multi-player is Peggle 2,

Its game play is addictive, its so easy to play yet so difficult to master. It has an extensive library of levels and an on-line 4-player mode yet there is no way to play 1vs1 on the same Xbox… Why!? Have game developers forgotten their childhood gaming memories? Everyone played local multi-player games because there was no xbox live or PSN. This is the game that should have a local multi-player!

I must confirm though, that I love playing multi-player games online, playing shooter games against people who actually have a brain and will change tactics on the fly are much more fun than A.I. that you can walk up to give it a hug and then kill it.

I want to play games like halo, dead space 3 and gears of war, games that use the 2nd character and link him or her into the story. Gears of war did this perfectly, I felt very emotional at a certain point on the third game.

I don’t want developers to throw in split-screen multi-player as an afterthought, they need to start making games with the purpose to play with friends through a story, it makes it more gripping and the game becomes a lot more entertaining. Recently I’ve found myself playing single player modes just to get achievements and thats not how games should make me feel

Online gaming has revolutionised the gaming industry, multi-player is great, however can we have games that are local co-op so we can bring people over to play games like we used to, PLEASE! Its a win win for both sides, your games would be better and we would enjoy them more!

Free to play games on mobile phones are quickly becoming the most popular games worldwide. This could be viewed as a major breakthrough for the gaming industry, free games equals more gamers which could make more serious gamers and possibly game developers.

The most popular free to play game over the past year has been candy crush saga… ugh! Firstly I want to point out that the developers (king) stole the idea of this game from an individual developer who created his version “candyswipe” in 2010. Following on from this there has been a legal debate about trademarks and its all complicated because its legal (sigh). Basically the big company is pushing the little guy around.

Candyswipe Candy Crush

Now for the main reason for this blog, free to play games are the greatest con in life, its branded on the app store/google play/app social as FREE. This seems great at first however it gets ruined by the game not exactly being playable if you don’t buy extra lives. When I buy a game i would like to play it for as long as I like, when I like! Candy crush wants me to buy lives or harass my friends into playing it, NO, not cool! When your friends stop giving you loves theres an option to buy lives… on this game that was meant to be free… thanks king. $0.99 seems cheap, but when a game was meant to be free it seems steep.

Although i dislike candy crush, i have seen much worse for the free to play games, the best example for this is Dungeon Keeper which was a fantastic game for pc, when they brought it to phones however, they ruined it!

In dungeon keeper you must dig out areas to create an area for monsters to live, you play against an A.I. in a strategy type of game, so speed is needed. if you try to dig out a block it will make you wait 24 hours till its done… it was instant in the PC game. You can speed it up using gems, and when you can buy 500 it seems like a lot… but not so! you use about 250 gems to instantly finish the dig, so each block is £1.50… Aparently the most popular option is 2,500 gems for £13.99, which will get you a total of 10 blocks dug out… Its definitely not worth £13.

Theres a simple alternative to this, pay for a full game and PLEASE don’t buy micro transactions, they are ruining the gaming industry as these are being placed into full games now too. You can buy the original PC game for around £7, it plays the same and will be more enjoyable and cheaper!

What makes the SSX games work? Some say the whacky gameplay, some may say the artwork but everyone agrees the the soundtrack on these games is consistently fantastic. Taking the game that is very good and pushing it to being a classic. Its like when you actually go skiing or snowboarding, its great fun, but music makes everything better!

Everyone has the song that they remember each game for, the song that is in my head right now is Young Blood by Naked and Famous on the latest SSX. Its most likely how it started a game, its mixed in such a way that it gives you goose bumps as you are about to shoot down the mountain, well, thats what music does to you! I’m sure the most recent SSX would not be as good a game without the help of a fantastic soundtrack, and the best part about the music is that it remixes to you racing, and the accented “its tricky” will remind fans of the series of the ever popular SSX Tricky.

SSX 3 features a soundtrack of predominately remixed tracks, but when the original artists are the likes of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Fatboy Slim and Yellowcard you know that the developers have been doing their music research in the best way possible. The music isn’t mainstream and that’s what makes it memorable, you can place your finger on where you heard that certain song which sparks nostalgia!

The point of this blog is basically to say that some games are remembered because their soundtracks make the game that much more memorable, everyone could identify the chilling sounds of Halo, yes its a very different piece of music, but it makes the game experience better. SSX has just done this in a much more high tempo way! And I love it!

Peggle 2 is probably one of the most under-rated games on the Xbox One, its a very accessible game that is very family oriented, however it is set up well for hardcore gamers too! (UPDATE – Now available for Xbox 360)

Peggle uses 5 Characters, each have a different special ability which can be obtained by hitting one of 2 purple pegs in a level. Thevariation in characters keeps game play fresh and entertaining, and I found that different characters where better in different levels, however in multiplayer you need to pick whichever one suits your style best. The scoring is simple, your aim is to hit all the orange pegs (25) which improve your multiplier, blue pegs are purely for getting bigger multiplier scores.

Peggle 2 masters the art of blending easy game play yet making it extremely hard to master it fully. What do I mean exactly, you may ask… Well Peggle is addictive from the get go, you can play through it for hours and not get bored of the new levels and the occasional struggle that the challenge levels give you.

The challenge of peggle lies in doing 100% of the objectives, which sounds easy when there’s only 3 per level, however, these objectives are some of the most difficult challenges I’ve encountered in a video game! I thought I played

the game well the first time through, I found that i had completed less than 30% of the objectives, that hurts!

The colours of the game are mesmerising, different backgrounds with the pegs dotted around the level give it a unique beauty that can only be appreciated fully through game play. Everything is where you expect it to be, its easy to track your score and ball count, you can also check the level objectives by pressing the menu button. The games soundtrack is fantastic, a blend of easy to listen sounds that react to pegs being hit, not to mention the classic track that plays at the completion of a level, I won’t spoil it, its a lot of fun!

The multiplayer is engaging and different, you have no chance of gaining free balls, its a straight up 10 balls, highest score wins. The only issue I had with the multiplayer, apart from occasional server issues, was that the winner was sometimes determined by who got their ball in the middle bucket at the end. Scoring 50,000 points swings a game dramatically. This didn’t happen all the time, but can be a little frustrating when its determined on luck!

Thanks for readingPeggle 2 is a great game, I highly recommend it, its cheap and provides a long game with more challenges than you can imagine, good luck finishing it 100%! A very well designed with beautiful artwork and sounds, and easy to pick up and hard to master game play it makes a worthy investment.

This list is my opinion of the top Co-op games on the Xbox 360 based on my experience. I have used games as series to stop myself repeating a game from the same series multiple times. I have played lots of co-op games with friends both locally and via Xbox live. I find co-op games extremely fun when I’m looking for a non competitive game session. Without further ado the list…

10. The Outfit

This may come as a surprise to most, but The Outfit gave me one of the most enjoyable experiences playing co-op ever. It was released back in 2006 and went fairly under the radar. Definitely worth a cheap pick-up if you want a different co-op game.

9. Gears of War (Series)

Gears of War set the bar for third person shooters when it bought of the first of the series. Since then it has been slightly downhill, the later games lack innovation and the story of the first game was the best. They are very pretty games though and great fun to play with a buddy

8. Lego Games (They are all awesome)

If at any point you want an amazing casual game, look no further than a Lego game. There’s plenty of choice and all play in their own unique way. Each Lego game puts a unique comedy look into the movie(s) its based off and the replay-ability makes it a multiple hour game. It plays ten times better with a friend too! BONUS!

7. Army of Two

I don’t know why anyone would play a game called “Army of Two” on their own. Army of Two brought a new look at how co-operative games should work. It was great how it forced you to work together to get through stages, the use of aggro made you look at different ways to look at how to get through a level. Definitely worth a go for any co-op game lovers.

6. Dead Island

I could just say its a 4 player zombie co-op game that’s close to free roam. If you, like me played this alone the first time, you probably hated this game, it sucked on solo. I implore you to give Dead Island a second look and play it with a couple of friends, it gives the game a totally different feel, makes some parts easier and makes it way more fun!

5. Castle Crashers

One of my favourite games from XBLA. Castle Crashers balances fun and difficulty very well, its one of those special games that is easy to play but difficult to master. It plays up to 4 players at once and there’s a choice of character to suit your style. If you want a final sell point, you can level up too

4. Portal 2

Its portal, but you have to work together sounds perfect to me. A fun puzzle game that eases up the difficulty as you go along. Its a great added extra to a great game.

3. Left 4 dead 1&2

Another 4 player zombie game, but Left 4 Dead is a linear game which can end up becoming extremely manic. Left 4 Dead games give a great variation of how to play, together, or leave your friends for… dead. Perfect

2. Borderlands 1&2

Borderlands is much better with friends. It is a funky looking games and uses wit to draw players in. Its a really long game without counting the DLC so there’s plenty to do in it.

1. Halo (series)

Anyone who has owned an Xbox 360 has probably owned a Halo game. The long continuing story keeps you gripped if you have been playing since Halo: Combat Evolved. Each Halo game has a special wow moment, its always much cooler to experience with a friend too!

Co-op games need a small revival soon, they are slowly being removed from games, particularly local co-op.

Welcome to where you’ll be able to find everything I put up on the internet from now on even when I’m publishing it in other places like Previous Magazine.

Alice and I would like to thank Hammy Havoc and the rest of Split An Atom for agreeing to develop The Boo Tube as well as my girlfriend’s The Alice Jones, we’re happy to announce that we’ll be collaborating further on this amidst a lot of other things and we’ll also be writing for Previous Magazine from here on in as well.